Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious of my time. That is something I feel really passionately about as well.

On that whole issue of the 10,000 target, the growth of apprenticeships is something we hear about a lot from Government. That is extremely welcome. It is really good that people have different opportunities and all that. However, I was looking at the growth of consortia apprentices versus the growth of craft apprentices since 2017 and there has been an average annual growth rate of 80% for consortia apprentices, which is great, versus 10.5% in craft apprentices. Would it be fair to say, therefore, that the focus seems to be on growing the number of people going into consortia apprenticeships versus the craft apprenticeships?